invisible machinery
by Alexis Merchester
Summary: The fans are beginning to notice some things in their recent videos; how tired and pale Phil looks, how soft-eyed and sad Dan looks when he looks at him sometimes, how he can't seem to stop touching him… - warnings for character death and descriptions of appearance of cancer/disease


I know, I know - the sirens sound  
Just before the walls come down.  
Pain is a well-intentioned weatherman  
Predicting God as best he can,  
But God I want to feel again.

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All I want is to flip a switch  
Before something breaks that cannot be fixed.

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Invisible machinery,  
These moving parts inside of me  
Well, they've been shutting down for quite some time,  
Leaving only rust behind.

- _Sleeping At Last, Touch_

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The fans are beginning to notice some things in their recent videos; how tired and pale Phil looks, how soft-eyed and sad Dan looks when he looks at him sometimes, how he can't seem to stop touching him…

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Warnings: character death, descriptions of appearance of disease/cancer, can be seen as gen (deep friendship) or pre-slash/slight slash

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 **invisible machinery**

 _2:20 and 5:32 why is he looking at him like that omg it hurts_

 _Dan's been really touchy and gentle with Phil these past videos and I love it_

 _Ikr but at the same time im concerned_

 _Phil looks a bit tired and pale (well paler than he already is)? anyone else see that or just me?_

 _Not just you_

 _I noticed that too_

 _yeah, me too_

 _same. and sometimes dan looks kind sad when he looks at him. What's going on?_

 _I don't know. I'm kind of worried_

 _dan's a bit quieter too now. He almost never talks over phil anymore lol_

 **.**

 _Dan literally just grabbed Phil by the shirt and into his side while laughing omg what the fuck_

 _theyre becoming gayer and gayer_

 _I feel like it's about to happen. They're about to tell us that Phan is real_

 _As much as I wish this would mean what I think it means, I don't think it does. It doesn't have to mean that they're together just because theyre acting so close like this_

 _i feel like there's something wrong that they cant tell us about_

.

Dan's been reading comments like these all around. He gets why the whole thing is being blown up like this, but he still wishes they won't make such a big deal out of it.

When he finds himself acting like this during filming, he is well-aware of how it all looks and what the fans will think when they see it. He is. He isn't stupid. But he's just so past the point of caring. He has been ever since he heard the words, "three months at most."

Nowadays, when he watches Phil in those moments, Phil with his bad jokes and his adorable personality and the way his light laughter takes up his whole face, brightens up his bruised and weary eyes, he remembers. He remembers the doctor's words when he tells him about the cancer spreading in his lungs (stage four. Large cell, which tends to grow rapidly. Symptoms are usually displayed later). Remembers the little time he has left with the greatest person in his life. His first and only best friend.

And truthfully, the boy he thought he was meant to spend his life with.

He doesn't know what he's going to do when it's all over.

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It started with fatigue. Phil sleeping in longer than he usually would. Phil asking why he's so tired all the time, and Dan would always respond with a joke on him being unfit and needing to hit the gym.

And then Phil complaining about finding it hard to breathe sometimes.

Still, Dan brushed it off with snark and jokes, because Phil never really sounded worried, exactly. It was always said as a passing thought. And if he wasn't worried, neither should he.

And then Phil had a cough that lasted for an abnormally long time, with no other symptoms. That was strange, but Dan never knew much about lung cancers (not until Phil was diagnosed with it and he spent all night reading on it) so he never suspected it.

And then he found Phil on the floor, coughing up blood.

And then Dan felt sick to his stomach, and he never stopped feeling sick to his stomach ever since.

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They fought in the hospital. Dan wanted Phil to get chemotherapy. Phil just wanted to live the last of his days in peace (he says he heard that the cancer never hurts as much as the chemo). He said it wouldn't help. Dan felt like screaming, like curling up and never moving an inch, because this wasn't a horrible nightmare that he kept trying to wake himself from and this frail, exhausted man sounded nothing like sunshine-bright, optimistic Phil.

 _You heard what the doctor said_ , he said tiredly. _It's too late. The disease has spread too far, Dan_.

 _Oh come on, Phil!_ he yelled, his voice high and frustrated and shaky, trying not to break.

And then he ended up breaking anyway when Phil said, I'm sorry, and he took ahold of Dan's wrist and pulled him down to the bed with him and just held him close.

 **.**

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They're sitting on the couch watching anime. Phil's leaning back heavily against the back of it, eyes drooping from fatigue. He carries a handkerchief around in his hand nowadays and it's stained with splatters of fresh carmine and stale russet, and Dan's still not used to the sight and smell of blood, and the reminder that someday he will lose his best friend forever. He doesn't know what the afterlife will be like, or if there is one at all, and that terrifies him because that could mean that he won't see Phil again anywhere when it's over.

He feels sick to his stomach again.

He reaches out and holds Phil's left hand. Phil's eyes flutter back open again. Dan smiles when he rolls his head over to look at him.

"You keep nodding off," Dan says.

"Sorry," Phil replies, laughing a little. Rubs at his eyes with his other hand.

"I didn't say you were doing anything wrong." Dan rolls his eyes. "I just stated that. Are you comfortable enough?"

"I'm always comfortable on our beloved sofa bed," he says, voice soft and feeble, and he leans forward and rests his head on his friend's chest. Dan wonders if he's gotten it by now, that when Dan asks things like this, it means he's looking for excuses to keep him close without outright saying, " _hey, I can't stop thinking again about you being in a coffin and me living the rest of my sad miserable lonely life without you so let's cuddle and then maybe I can not die of a panic attack by reassuring myself that you're still here right now in the present._ "

Even thinking that fucking hurts.

He puts an arm around him and looks back at the screen, except he can't see shit. His vision has been perpetually blurred these days, it seems, and it gets kind of fucking annoying after a while.

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They're filming another video for their collaborative gaming channel. Some game suggested many times by people in the comments, and they decided to finally listen and give it a go.

Phil fucks up the game, and Dean teases him for it, and he's laughing again (even though it's probably really hurting his lungs), with that thing he does where he covers his mouth with his hand. Dan thinks he looks beautiful like that, and he thinks he should never hide it when he looks like that.

And once again, he's stuck staring at him. And once again, there's a knife stuck in his chest, his stomach clenching and his heart too big and soft.

It hurts to look at him, but he can't stop.

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At one point, he finds himself doing it again. Touching him too much and for too long and just finding ways to convince himself he's still here. Trying not to think about him not being here for long.

At one point, he finds himself grabbing a hold of Phil's shirt and pulling him close and burying his face into his raven-black hair. He doesn't edit that bit out and he doesn't know why.

 **.**

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Dan makes coffee and breakfast for them both nowadays, something Phil used to do instead before _there may only be three months at most left for him_ (shakes that clear voice out of his head). Says Phil should save his energy. At first, Phil tried to protest. Didn't want Dan to treat him like he can't even do the most basic things anymore because of his disease.

For a while, it worked. Dan let him do the chores sometimes, whenever he could.

But it kept getting harder and harder by each day. It's cruel, the gradual, and yet, rapid progression of this disease. It's gradual in the sense that you don't really notice until you really think back on it, because it's so slow and smooth that Dan doesn't realize how much easier his breaths came a month and a half ago compared to now, how the spots on his handkerchief were a lot smaller, a lot more distanced in between, a lot less. How much more he had been able to do because he wasn't always this tired. Dan didn't notice. It feels like this is how it's always been.

Rapid in the sense that it was hard to believe it only took the duration of a month and a half for it to get this bad. But the month felt more like a year, and Dan feels so fucking tired and sad and old.

Phil finds it hard to get out of bed these days. Finds it hard to do anything, go anywhere, without having to sit down after a minute. He feels bad for not being able to do much and leaving it all on Dan, but Dan doesn't want him to do anything anyway, because Phil looks so thin now that he's actually afraid he'll break (doesn't eat much anymore and he's so far from the boy who used to steal his cereal and eat their baking ingredients and loved food with all his heart). And he's too pallid, eyes so sunken in and black that Dan can't help but think of his corpse in a coffin already everytime he looks at him (and fuck it breaks his heart to look at him).

They've even stopped making videos. They stopped when the comments started to become more and more about Phil's sickly appearance than the video itself. They avoid their own tags on tumblr nowadays, because that's all that's really being talked about there, and it's just saddening.

Dan thought they deserved to know about it, but Phil didn't want to hurt them by letting them know about this. Dan told him they'd be hurt far more if they found out too late (it was hard to get those words out past the glass shards choking his throat), but Phil said they'd be hurt a bit longer if they found out now. It's still not decided what would be worse, but all Dan knows is that he's nearly thrown up a couple of times when the guilt of it became too much.

Sometimes he meets some of their viewers outside, on his way to the grocery store or something like that. They ask about Phil, and he nevers know what to tell them. He laughs and tries his best to not answer them, and he's pretty sure they always notice it, but they never push out of respect. He thinks that maybe at this point, there's no use hiding it, because they've already figured out something is very wrong. Maybe even what exactly that something wrong is. But Phil feels like he's protecting them somehow, like he's saving them pain by keeping it to himself, and he doesn't really know if it's right to take that away.

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The second month is over already, and Phil is worse than Dan thought it was possible for a person to get worse. And fuck, it's all passed too fast and the third month is too near now and he can't can't _can't_ think about how this month is going to pass just as quick as the others, and in a month it'll all be over and soon he'll inevitably be stuck living that life he can't bear to imagine right now.

Phil's napping on the couch, and he's looking too old and he's looking too young. He's looking too pale and black-eyed and he's looking too innocent and peaceful. His breathing doesn't sound right and his hair is sticking up and all over. He's too saddening to look at and too fucking beautiful to look away from, and his chest aches from both of these things, sorrow and love melding together like molten metals becoming alloys and he can't tell which is which anymore these days.

He can't help but think about how he'll never get to see this face of his in a couple of weeks, and he's feeling this deep, urgent need in his bones to somehow to capture this moment and keep it with him forever.

So he does.

So he gets his phone and sits down on the ground between the table and couch and focuses it on his face, takes a picture.

And then he sets it to video, feeling a sort of mischievous glee in his stomach that he always does when he's about to mess with his best friend. He presses the record button, waits a while for the camera to focus on his face, and then reaches out an index finger, tickling him on the cheek with its tip. Phil's cheek twitches after a couple of seconds, but he doesn't move. He sleeps like that these days, deep and long, and it takes Dan a lot more to wake him up now. It pangs his chest, as everything about Phil does now, in good ways and bad ways, but right now he's smiling and that comes a bit harder these days so he lets it happen.

He takes a hold of a strand of Phil's hair and pulls, a bit too hard. Phil's eyebrows twitch low, shifting his head, and Dan's trying to hold back his snickers.

Next, he pokes him in the chin. He keeps on entertaining himself like that for a few minutes, tickling and poking and pulling, watching Phil's face, watching him twitch and jerk here and there in the silence, with nothing but his own occasional snorts and giggles escaping. It's quite immature of him, he realizes, to still find things like these funny, and he wants to laugh a little because even after everything, some things never change.

Eventually, he finds himself kind of running his fingers through Phil's hair. Doesn't really know how or why, but it may have a lot to do with how he's suddenly finding it hard to find air and how his body's too heavy and tired again and how he wants to be as physically close to Phil as it's possible for two people to be. He stops recording, turns the camera off and puts it down on the table behind him. Scoots forward and lays his head up lightly against Phil's ribs, feeling it rise and fall with each inhale and exhale.

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So from there on, it becomes a regular thing. He keeps his phone in his pockets and takes random pictures and videos of Phil. Phil laughing. Phil sleeping. Phil brushing his teeth. Phil smiling at the TV. Phil trying to sabotage his attempts at filming or photographing by covering the lens. Phil huddled up in his blankets on the couch. Phil on his laptop. Phil making funny faces at the camera. Phil being Phil.

It doesn't really make sense, maybe. They're quite well-known youtubers. Being filmed is a part of their job, so there are more than enough captured memories to look back on, videos in which Phil is happier and healthier and has more hope and light in him.

But it's not like Dan thought about it. It's not like he meant it to be a regular thing. It's just that he hears Phil laugh sometimes, or talk, or sees him at peace in his dreams, or smiling at Dan in a way that makes his insides mush, or under the sunlight from the windows, and not really for the first time, feels like he wants a way to keep all these things, these moments of him (little things that only began to matter at the prospect of them ending soon), forever. To be able to play it on repeat whenever he wanted to, for the rainier days to come, perhaps. He doesn't know why or for when, because he's sure that when it's all over and done, he won't even be able to bear the sight of anything that reminds Dan of him. But there is a sort of comfort in capturing fragments of time when time is going by so quickly. It makes it feel less like a blur, less hazy. It makes him feel just a bit less helpless and lost.

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Dan knows he's scared too (because they've had conversations about it before and Phil always told him it terrifies him to think about it), but he doesn't show it, and Dan thinks it's because Phil already sees how broken up _he_ is about it and so he doesn't think it'd be good if both of them were. That makes him feel like shit, because the one with the illness wasn't supposed to be the one trying to be strong.

Now and then, Phil lets himself be a bit vulnerable. Talks about things he wished he could have done in life, and Dan would have taken him anywhere he wanted, to see anything he wanted, to do anything he wanted, but Phil's been so exhausted all the time, and his body is always in pain, and he wheezes so much that it scares Dan because it feels like he might completely run out of air any second.

Three months and a week have gone by, and Phil is still here, still breathing even if it sounds all wrong and still here even though he finds it too hard to do anything more than lie on the couch. For some reason, Dan's been counting down days as if Phil's going to be gone as soon as three whole months are over.

And god, it's a blessing he never expected. But it's also terrifying.

Because this is when things become even more uncertain, more unpredictable. This is when Dan should start readying himself for the after.

Three months was a probability, an estimation, and the doctor could have been wrong in a different and horrible way, because Phil's lungs could have given up a month ago instead. But maybe, maybe they'll have a couple more months. By some beautiful miracle, maybe.

And Phil's been so fucking strong all this time. So strong, Dan thinks. Happy, sunny Phil who loved life more than it deserved to be loved by him (because look at what's happening now). Silently suffering in the face of its oncoming end.

But there always comes a breaking point. That point was today.

Phil, on the couch again, head against Dan's thigh, wheezing, shaking, paper thin flesh sticking to his skeleton and whiter than their walls and curled up from the agony in his chest and back and shoulders, his handkerchief, only changed a day ago, already soaked thoroughly with blood (and Dan's so sickeningly used to it all now).

And he's suddenly choking on a sob, asking, "D-Dan?"

Dan pauses their show quickly, looking down at Phil. He leans down close, touches Phil's head gently. "Yeah, Philly?" he murmurs.

There's silence for a long moment, save for ragged, broken breathing.

And then he sobs, weak and shallow from lack of sufficient air.

Dan already knows. Before he even says anything, he knows. What else could it be, really?

"I don'... don' think m' ready t'…"

Dan bites his lower lip, face crumpling. He strokes his head. "I know, Philly."

Phil's crying openly, eyelashes wet and tears running down his face and face twisted up in sorrow and anguish and fear.

"Scar'd," he whispers, almost whimpers, and Dan swallows down his own emotions, because now's not the time to break.

But then…

Seeing Phil so broken, so honestly, truly, clearly broken, gives him this inexplicable sense of deep responsibility and strength. And suddenly, he's calm and in control. Suddenly, he's not breaking.

He gently slides his hands under Phil's shoulders, loops his arms under Phil's underarms. Pulls him up slowly, carefully, against his chest and holds his fragile body as close as he can by the middle without hurting him. He feels so small in his arms and it shrivels up his heart. He kisses his bony shoulder and the hollow of his neck and presses his face into it, whispers, "I've got you. I've got you. I'm here, Philly."

"Don'... don' wanna… die…" he gasps out.

Dan doesn't know what to say to that, so he rocks them slowly side to side, kisses his shoulder and neck and jaw some more. Repeats over and over, _I've got you_ and _I'm here I'm here I'm here_.

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It happens on a quiet little Tuesday.

Phil doesn't get out of bed on this morning, so Dan takes his laptop and gets into the bed with him. Phil sidles up against Dan's side, cheek settled on his shoulder, and Dan wraps his arm around him.

And somehow, they can both feel it. But they act as if it's another day and as if there will still be another day after, because it's just better that way.

Dan opens a media file on his laptop. A project he had spent days working on that he hadn't shared with Phil.

The window opens, and the video plays.

It's Phil's life, the compilation of the moments he lived, caught by the lens of a camera.

It's Phil, as a baby, as a child, surrounded by family. It's a Muse song playing in the background, Aftermath. One of their softer ones. It's the one Dan knows soothes Phil the most.

It's Phil, talking in one of his earliest videos when he started out as a youtuber.

It's them, in their first video together

It's them, laughing, goofing around. Happy and healthy.

It's them moving into their new apartment.

It's them at radio shows and recording studios, singing songs they wrote.

It's them travelling the world. Them writing their books.

It's them winning awards.

 _States are crumbling_  
 _Walls are rising high again_  
 _It's no place for the faint-hearted_  
 _But my heart is strong_  
 _Because now I know where I belong_  
 _It's you and I against the world_  
 _We are free_

Dan looks down, and Phil's watching the screen with this mellow-eyed, melancholic look on his face, this soft little smile full of nostalgia, his sickly face vaguely crumpled like he's on the edge of tears.

 _From this moment  
_ _From this moment  
_ _You will never be alone  
_ _We're bound together  
_ _Now and forever  
_ _The loneliness is gone_

Phil reaches out shakily and takes one of Dan's hands in his, grips it as tight as he can. His gaze never leaves the screen.

 _We've gone against the tide_  
 _All we have is each other now_  
 _I'm coming home now_  
 _I need your comfort_

It's quiet and slow when it happens. The song is still playing, and the video is still going on, the sound of Phil laughing again ringing out, fragile and sick and still as beautiful as it's ever been. The world is completely silent outside, or maybe Dan can't hear it. It's just the song, their voices in the video, Phil's shallow, ragged breaths.

 _From this moment_  
 _From this moment_  
 _You will never be alone_  
 _We're bound together_  
 _Now and forever_  
 _The loneliness has gone_

And in that moment, he can't remember anything else that exists outside of Phil. Phil whose inhales and exhales are growing more and more distant between one breath and the next. Phil whose body's growing heavier against his. Phil whose grip is loosening on his hand. Phil whose eyes are losing focus towards somewhere beyond Dan can reach him.

 _We're bound together_  
 _Now and forever_  
 _Loneliness has gone_

And that's the thing about time. It doesn't stop for you, and it doesn't wait for you to be ready. Whatever it's heading towards, it will get there, and then it will get past it, and the next thing you'll know, it's been a week since it happened. And then a month. And then a year. And then years.

In that moment, however, Dan can't think of his life beyond it. Can't think of an _after_ because he's not sure if there's supposed to be one after this.

* * *

 **I feel so bad about this story... but they have such a beautiful and adorable friendship, and me being the sadistic bitch I am, had to write something tragic and angsty to express my love for them. I'm sorry, Phil, for being another phan that likes killing you in my stories. I'm so sorry.**

 **So let me know what you thought!**


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